Chapter Two: The Troublemaker and Mario

“It appears that the main quest only requires passing the first stage, and the adventure must be undertaken alongside Mario, rather than the Dreamer personally defeating Bowser’s replica. In this world, Mario can grow larger by using red mushrooms, and can gain the ability to throw fireballs by obtaining a fire flower.”

“As long as he becomes Fireball Mario, defeating Bowser’s replica shouldn’t be difficult. Furthermore, there are only a handful of enemy types in the first major stage, all of which are easy to handle. This also explains why the scenario is rated at the lowest level: Grade E. After all, it’s merely a beginner’s mission.”

Having organized the relevant information, Wang Ling accessed his stats through the Dreamer Badge to review his digitized attributes.

“Personal Profile No. 10521: Strength: 8, Agility: 9, Endurance: 9, Intelligence: 11. Strength affects physical attack power and carrying capacity; Agility correlates with speed, jumping ability, and reflexes; Endurance impacts health, defense, physical stamina, and resistance; Intelligence concerns mental points, spells, imagination, and willpower.”

“The standard value for each attribute in an adult male is 10. Attributes can be increased with points earned from missions, or through equipment and items.”

“Health: 45, Mental Points: 55. Both values are five times the Endurance and Intelligence scores, displayed externally as health and mana bars. When health falls below one-tenth, you’ll enter a weakened state; when mental points fall below one-tenth, you’ll suffer from mental exhaustion—please be cautious.”

Wang Ling noted that his Strength, Agility, and Endurance were still below the average adult male standard, though his Intelligence was above par—of course, this didn’t reflect wisdom, but rather was analogous to the “magic stat” in typical games.

After checking his attributes, Wang Ling opened his inventory to inspect the items from the beginner’s package. He discovered the inventory was divided into eight slots, four of which were already occupied:

“Grade E Random Exchange Item. Can be exchanged for: Weapon, Armor, Accessory, Item, or Skill. Grade restriction: E. Special Note: Items, equipment, and skills are graded as X (Perfect), S (Super), A, B, C, D, and E.”

“Small Health Potion: Use to instantly restore 50 health points. Cooldown: 10 minutes.”

“Small Mental Potion: Use to instantly restore 50 mental points. Cooldown: 10 minutes.”

“Grade E Skill Refresh Stone: Instantly resets the cooldown of all Grade E skills you possess, including those granted by Grade E equipment. Effective on any Grade E skill.”

After examining these items and pondering for a few moments, Wang Ling asked, “Is there a limit to the number of skills a Dreamer can learn?”

The Dreamer Badge soon replied, “There is no limit, but upgrading skills requires spending currency points and skill points. Obtaining skills directly through skill books or random exchanges will double the cost of upgrading. Skills acquired through insight or interaction with story characters are not subject to this doubling. Once you possess a skill, you may also upgrade it through personal training, which does not consume any points.”

Wang Ling considered for a while, then used the Grade E Random Exchange Item, choosing Skill.

After all, everything else was external—being an ordinary person, he was especially eager to gain abilities beyond the norm, even if it was just a low-level Grade E skill.

“You have obtained a Grade E ability. Type: Innate Skill. Name: Trouble Maker. Special Note: Skills are categorized as Basic, Active, Passive, or Innate. Basic, Active, and Passive skills have a maximum level of ten; Innate skills have an indeterminate maximum level.”

“Trouble Maker: Maximum level seven. Each level unlocks a special ability. Current level’s ability: Causes any human target you focus your gaze on to have a violent sneeze. This skill can only be used on humans.”

“Innate skills are unique; no two Dreamers can possess the same innate skill. You cannot acquire a second innate skill through items. This innate skill can be used once per special ability, per world scenario.”

Staring at this so-called innate skill, “Trouble Maker,” Wang Ling couldn’t help but laugh wryly. If he had known it would turn out like this, he would certainly have chosen differently. Making someone sneeze? No wonder it’s a Grade E skill—utterly useless!

Still, having made his choice, there was no point in worrying about it. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and headed toward the two-story house with the “M” emblem hanging above the door. Clearly, this must be Mario’s home.

“La la, la la, la la la…”

Following the charming garden path to the fairy-tale-like house, Wang Ling heard a terribly out-of-tune but energetic singing coming from inside. He steadied himself, feeling both nervous and expectant, and knocked on the door.

The door swung open, having only been loosely closed. There stood a middle-aged man with distinctive features: a square mustache, a large nose, and big eyes, wearing red shorts and a red T-shirt. He was cheerfully humming while scrubbing a pair of blue overalls in a large wooden basin.

The one and only Mario!

Upon seeing Wang Ling at the door, Mario stood up. Wang Ling noticed that this mustachioed, big-nosed man was less than one meter fifty in height, and quite rotund—thankfully not so much as to be spherical.

It’s hard to believe that someone with this physique would be so adept at jumping.

Mario greeted him cheerfully, “Hey, Ling, what’s for lunch today? Huh, didn’t you go shopping? Why are you back empty-handed?”

Wang Ling knew his identity here was Mario’s cook. Unfortunately, apart from making instant noodles, he had no culinary skills at all—if he tried to cook, his incompetence would surely be revealed.

But he wasn’t worried; the Dream World hadn’t placed him in this scenario to cook for Mario, but to assist in defeating Bowser’s replica and rescuing the Mushroom Boy to obtain information about Princess Peach.

Still, upon hearing Mario’s question, a thought occurred to him, and he answered, “Bad luck—I tripped on my way to the market and lost my coin pouch.”

“Oh, that’s really unfortunate.”

“Could I get an advance on this month’s wages?”

“No problem.”

Mario wiped the soap suds from his hands, unlocked a drawer with a key, took out a coin pouch, and handed over two gold coins, one silver coin, and one copper coin. “According to our agreement, your monthly salary is 111 copper coins. That extra gold coin can cover the rest of this month’s grocery expenses.”

Wang Ling understood that the exchange rate in this world was the classic 100 copper coins to 10 silver coins to 1 gold coin. He took the coins and checked their data with the Dreamer Badge.

“Mushroom Copper Coin: Currency of the Mushroom Kingdom, valuable item, can be exchanged for 1 Dream World currency point.”

The silver and gold coins had similar descriptions, but could be exchanged for 10 and 100 points, respectively, making them even more precious.

All three types of coins were beautiful, gleaming brightly with a metallic luster. Each was twice the size of a one-yuan coin in the real world. One side bore a mushroom, while the reverse featured unique designs: the copper coin showed a flower—clearly the fire flower from this world; the silver coin had a star; the gold coin displayed Princess Peach’s charming portrait.

Holding the Mushroom Kingdom coins, Wang Ling fell into deep thought.

This exchange with Mario, and the coins in his hand, felt so real. It made him realize that this was truly a dream world, quite unlike reality. Moreover, Mario’s behavior demonstrated that story characters here were full of life, with their own thoughts and personalities.

As the main protagonist of the series, Mario was naturally not evil—simple, optimistic, and courageous. It was no wonder he believed the story about losing the coin pouch without hesitation.

This interaction revealed something important: engaging with story characters could yield benefits—so long as one had a plausible reason.

His current identity as a cook allowed him to receive money from Mario by requesting an advance. Without this identity, could he have obtained valuable coins from Mario? Clearly not.

However, the benefits of being a cook were limited. Mario’s greatest strengths—his jumping and stomping—were surely not something he could teach. If Wang Ling tried to learn those skills, he would surely be refused.

Still, to test it, Wang Ling asked, “Mario, I’ve always wanted to ask—how can you jump so high?”

“Oh, that’s just because I’ve loved jumping since I was a kid,” Mario replied offhandedly, sitting back down to scrub his overalls.

“Do you think I could ever jump as well as you?”

Mario looked up in surprise. “You like jumping too?”

“Yes, very much. Could you teach me?”

But the short, stocky superstar immediately shook his head vigorously, making a series of “mmm mmm” sounds in firm refusal. “That’s an important secret!”

Wang Ling was not disappointed; if skills could be so easily obtained from story characters, then Dreamers would be overflowing with skills, and that would hardly be desirable.

He turned his gaze back to the coins, gently caressing them as he pondered. He decided not to exchange them for currency points—he had no immediate use for those—and instead stored them in his inventory, discovering that identical gold coins could be stacked together.

“Hurry up and go buy groceries, or you’ll be late making lunch!” Mario urged.

Wang Ling was in no rush to leave. He knew that news of Princess Peach’s abduction would soon reach them—in other words, the real game scenario was about to begin.